Inside Fort Mountain State Park, Chatsworth, GA.

Sorry I haven't posted since last weekend, but I have a VERY good excuse. We spent four nights at Fort Mountain State Park in Chatsworth, Georgia, but there was NO cellphone reception or internet connections. There wasn't even Wi-Fi at the park office. It's just as well, I guess. We did have basic cable TV, so I was busy watching some of my favorite shows. I really couldn't pull myself away for long enough to blog anyway. We had never been to Fort Mountain before, but it definitely won't be our last visit. Other than the lack of communication, we had an AWESOME time, and a BEAUTIFUL campsite. The daytime temperatures never got above 68 degrees in the shady campground. It was 51 to 53 degrees every morning. PERFECT! As we usually do, we rolled through both camping loops after checking in at the Trading Post/Park Office. We picked out a couple of good looking campsites in the Creekside loop, but fell in love with site number 49 in the Lakeside loop once we saw it. As a bonus for Gary, the restroom was only a couple of hundred feet away. Gary was warned about the presence of black bears while checking in. All of the garbage cans are bear proof, and there are warning signs throughout the park. We never saw any (thankfully) inside the park, but Gary saw a dead one that had been hit by a car on the side of the road during one of his trips down the mountain. There is plenty for you humans to do within the park. There are miles of trails, a beach, mini-golf, boating, bicycling, fishing, etc. And there are spectacular views if you don't mind hiking for a while to reach the overlooks. Fort Mountain is another park developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps back in the 1930's. Some of the original structures are still standing and being used, like one of the picnic pavilions and the recently restored fire tower. The cabins look really nice, and there are new ones currently under construction. Gary walked for miles while we were there, and he still didn't see everything there was to see. The park is over 3700 acres, and the elevation is over 3800 feet. Poor old Dodge was straining his guts out pulling me up those hills. Needless to say, he isn't as big of a fan of mountainous parks as Gary and I. He always gets us where we want to go though, and he never complains. What a guy! Gary took over 300 pictures. I sorted through them and picked out a few of my favorites to share with you. I'll do a separate post soon with some pics that were taken outside the park as well. I would have put them all together in this one post, but I didn't want to overwhelm you. Fort Mountain is now on our list of favorites, and Gary has already mentioned a return trip next fall. Next time, I'm sure we will stay longer than four days. That just wasn't enough time to take it all in. We might come a little bit later next time to see a bit more of the fall foliage. If you haven't ever been to Fort Mountain, we HIGHLY recommend it. It's Toaster approved!